This invention relates to an apparatus for stick-spearing stalk-cut tobacco stalks, which is adapted to be employed for spearing or spearing a stick into the stalk of tobacco and hang-drying the speared tobacco in a curing barn on the occasion of curing harvested tobacco leaf that has been stalk-cut.
The curing of tobacco leaf is generally performed in two different ways, i.e. the method of priming-curing wherein the curing is performed after tobacco leaves that have been harvested one by one are successively knitted into a string; and the method of stalk-cut curing wherein the curing is performed on tobacco stalk that has been reaped with tobacco leaves being kept attached to the tobacco stalk. According to this stalk-cut curing, the stalk-cut tobacco stalk is hanged in a curing barn to perform the curing thereof. Conventionally, the hanging of the stalk-cut tobacco stalk in a curing barn has been performed as follows.
(1) A groove for hanging is formed at first in each of the tobacco stalks that have been stalk-cut using a sickle or a saw, and then, the tobacco stalks are attached one after another through this groove to a pin which has been fixed in advance at predetermined intervals to an upper hanging frame of a curing barn or to a stalk-cut curing net which has been fixed to an upper hanging frame of a curing barn, thus curing the tobacco stalks.
(2) First of all, a peg or a bamboo spit is speared through the tobacco stalk that has been stalk-cut, and then, the tobacco stalks are hanged one after another at predetermined intervals through this peg or bamboo stick in the manner as explained in the aforementioned method (1), thus curing the tobacco stalks.
(3) First of all, a long and slender bar having a length of about 1 to 1.3 m, or so-called stick is speared through each stalk portion of tobacco stalks that have been stalk-cut, and then, this stick spearing a plurality of tobacco stalks is hanged on a hanging frame of a curing barn, thus curing the leaves of the tobacco stalks.
According to any of these methods, tobacco stalks reaped are required to be manually treated one by one, thus demanding considerable labor or making it a main problem in the stalk-cut curing.
Under these circumstances, there are proposed several methods wherein the operation of spearing the stick through the stalk portion of tobacco stalks as set forth in the aforementioned method (3) is performed by mechanical means. For example, Japanese Patent Publication S63-66507 discloses a mechanism wherein a predetermined number of tobacco stalks are fixed at predetermined intervals on a table, and then, a stick is introduced laterally so as to spear the stalk portions of these tobacco stalks. Further, Japanese Patent Publication S55-46154 discloses a mechanism wherein a stick is fixed in advance to a table, and then, the stalk portions of tobacco stalks are introduced to the stick so as to allow the stalk portions of tobacco stalks to be successively speared by the stick.
The mechanism of laterally introducing a stick so as to spear the stalk portions of these tobacco stalks that have been fixed in advance to a table as set forth in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Publication S63-66507 is required to be executed while placing an apparatus in a specific working shop. Therefore, the tobacco stalks reaped at a field are required to be transported to the working shop. Moreover, a careful operation is required so as not to damage the tobacco leaf during the transportation thereof. Furthermore, according to this mechanism, since the stick is laterally introduced so as to spear the tobacco stalks secured on the table, the width of working space is required to be at least twice as large as the length of the stick to be employed. Additionally, since the stick is designed to be continuously laterally transferred in this mechanism, a complicated guiding mechanism as well as a precise operation is required in order to allow the stick to be accurately speared through the center of tobacco stalk.
The mechanism of introducing the tobacco stalks in the lateral direction to a stick that has been fixed in advance to a table so as to allow the stalk portions of tobacco stalks to be successively speared by the stick as set forth in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Publication S55-46154 is advantageous in that the apparatus can be miniaturized as a whole, and that the apparatus can be brought directly into a field and mounted on a vehicle so as to enable the tobacco stalks being reaped from the field to be speared in situ by the stick carried on the apparatus while moving forward the apparatus. As a result, the aforementioned inconvenience of transporting the tobacco stalk to a working shop can be avoided. However, the apparatus set forth in Japanese Patent Publication S55-46154 is designed such that a pushing member for moving the stalk portion of tobacco stalk along the stick is enabled to be moved forward by the normal rotation of a motor so as to transfer a tobacco stalk up to a predetermined distance along the stick, after which the pushing member is moved back to the initial position by the reverse rotation of the motor in order to prepare for the transfer of the next tobacco stalk up to a predetermined portion close to the position of preceding tobacco stalk through the normal rotation of the motor.
Therefore, it is required, in order to realize an array of equidistant intervals of tobacco stalks, to gradually and equidistantly reduce the transferring distance of tobacco stalk (i.e. the moving distance of the pushing member) in every forward movement of the pushing member, thus making the control system of the apparatus very complicated. If there is a case where the apparatus fails to realize an array of equidistant intervals of tobacco stalks, the intervals of the tobacco stalks are required to be readjusted manually by an operator. Further, since the stand-by time for the next spearing of tobacco stalk varies always, the operator is always annoyed. Furthermore, since the total moving distance of the pushing member which is required for spearing a predetermined number of tobacco stalks per stick becomes fairly large as a result of the aforementioned complicated mechanism, the operation of attaching the tobacco stalks to one stick takes a fairly long time.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which is capable of overcoming the aforementioned problems which are involved in the mechanism of introducing the tobacco stalks to a stick that has been fixed in advance to an apparatus so as to allow the stalk portions of tobacco stalks to be successively speared by the stick.
More specifically, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for stick-spearing stalk-cut tobacco stalks, which enables a predetermined number of stalk-cut tobacco stalk to be easily speared by a stick within a short period of time, and is capable of easily arraying tobacco stalks at equidistant intervals and at the same time, capable of easily changing the intervals.
With a view to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an apparatus for stick-spearing stalk-cut tobacco stalks which comprises;
an endless belt rotatably wound around a frame and provided along a circumferential surface thereof with a plurality of stick-supporting claws and a plurality of stalk-transferring claws;
a stick rear end-holding means for fixing a rear end of the stick supported by said stick-supporting claws to said frame; and
an actuator provided with a movable member which can be reciprocatively moved a predetermined distance while retaining a parallel state thereof with said stick supported by said stick-supporting claws;
wherein said actuator is designed to be operated in such a way that when said movable member is advanced toward said stick supported by said stick-supporting claws, said stalk-cut tobacco stalk is pushingly transferred allowing a stalk portion of said stalk-cut tobacco stalk to be speared by a distal end of said stick and at the same time, said endless belt is caused to move forward up to a predetermined distance, thereby enabling the preceding stalk-cut tobacco stalk(s), if any, that has already been speared by said stick to advance up to a predetermined distance by means of said stalk-transferring claws.
According to this apparatus, by way of advancing movement of the movable member of the actuator, a stalk-cut tobacco stalk is caused to be pushingly transferred toward the distal end of the stick that has been fixedly secured, thereby allowing the stalk portion of the tobacco stalk to be speared by the stick. Concurrent with this spearing of the stalk-cut tobacco stalk, the endless belt is caused to move forward up to a distance which corresponds to one stroke of the movable member. After being advanced in this manner, the movable member is moved back to the original position while allowing the endless belt to be kept stopped at the advanced position. Likewise, the next stalk-cut tobacco stalk is speared by the stick, and at the same time, the endless belt is again caused to move forward up to a distance which corresponds to one stroke of the movable member. This operation is repeated a required number of times, thereby finishing the operation of stick-spearing a required number (usually about 8) of tobacco stalks to one stick.
In this stick-spearing operation of tobacco stalks, when the endless belt is moved in the next stick-spearing operation of tobacco stalk, the preceding stalk-cut tobacco stalk(s), if any, that has already been speared by said stick is caused to slide forward along the stick as it is pushed from the back thereof by means of said stalk-transferring claws attached to the endless belt. Therefore, the preceding stalk-cut tobacco stalk(s) that has already been speared by said stick is caused to advance by a constant distance along the stick by simply allowing the movable member of the actuator to reciprocatively move a predetermined distance (corresponding to one stroke) constantly. This predetermined distance can be determined by an effective length of stroke of the movable member and by the intervals of the stalk-transferring claws attached to the endless belt.
Preferably, a plurality of the stalk-transferring claws should be attached to the endless belt at equal intervals, thereby making it possible to easily and reliably array and secure a plurality of the stick-spearing stalk-cut tobacco stalks onto the stick at a constant pitch without necessitating the employment of special controlling mechanism. The effective stroke length of the movable member of the actuator may be the same as the interval between the neighboring tobacco stalks to be arranged on the stick, thereby making it possible to minimize the total moving distance of the movable member of the actuator, which is required for spearing a required number of tobacco stalks per stick and to enable the movable member to move at a high speed. As a result, the stick-spearing operation can be accomplished within a shorter period of time as compared with the conventional apparatus.
Preferably, the stalk-transferring claws may be attached to the endless belt with the positions of the stalk-transferring claws being made variable along the circumference of the endless belt. The effective stroke length of the movable member of the actuator may be also made variable. When the stalk-transferring claws and the movable member are constructed in this manner, the hanging intervals of the stick-spearing stalk-cut tobacco stalks to be speared by the stick can be made adjustable, thereby making it possible to change the number of stalk-cut tobacco stalks to be speared by a single stick. This adjustment of hanging intervals will be performed depending on the degree of wilt of leaves of tobacco stalks on the occasion of attaching the tobacco stalks to the stick. For example, when the tobacco leaves of the tobacco stalks that have been highly wilted in a standing state thereof by making use of a saw in field are to be treated in this curing works, the hanging intervals of the tobacco stalks may be narrowed more or less, thus making it possible to attach about eight tobacco stalks to a single stick, without inviting the generation of moldy leaves or damaged leaves. Whereas, when the tobacco stalks having non-wilted tobacco leaves have been reaped, the hanging intervals of the tobacco stalks should be enlarged more or less, and hence, only about six tobacco stalks can be attached to a single stick, since narrower spearing intervals would lead to the generation of moldy leaves or damaged leaves.
In a preferred embodiment of the apparatus according to this invention, various kinds of detecting means (sensors) may be employed for smoothly performing the stick-spearing operation of tobacco stalks, whereby it is made possible to interlock the movement of the actuator or the holding or releasing movement of the stick rear end-holding means with the movement of setting the stalk-cut tobacco stalk or with the movement of mounting a stick on the stick-supporting claws. As a result, the continuous and safe operation of the apparatus can be ensured.